


The Final Step

by ShininDragon



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Bitterness, Drama, Gen, How Do I Tag, I'm Sorry, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Dead Man's Chest, Sad, Suicide, Tragedy, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-12 05:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20991236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShininDragon/pseuds/ShininDragon
Summary: He was a brave and proud man, wasn't he? But he just didn't see a point to any of this any more. He just didn't have the strength to go on.





	The Final Step

**Author's Note:**

> So, umm, this is actually a translation of a story of mine. I've been wanting to translate it for a while now but never found the time. But now I have, obviously. 
> 
> English isn't my first language, so there might be mistakes in grammar and spelling. I've tried my best. Hope not too much is wrong.
> 
> There actually is an artwork I made for this story but I don't know how to post it along with the story. Maybe I'm too stupid? *shrug* Anyway, maybe someone can help?

James looked out at the sea with tired green eyes and an empty gaze. Then his eyes wandered and he stared at the endlessly wide horizon and his gaze got lost in it. James’ shoulders were hunched; he had no strength to hold them up any more. He felt like he could just break down right on the very spot he was standing on. He felt so numb. He had lost all his strength, his drive. Everything seemed so unbelievably pointless to him. It felt like the earth had stopped spinning; as if it had been frozen in movement from one moment to another – and he with it. It seemed to him like he was trapped in a dream from which he desperately tried to wake up and realise that everything that had happened had been nothing but a gruesome nightmare. A cruelly bad joke of his subconscious. His misery would vanish.

James sighed. He dropped his head back and looked up to the crimson sky of the dusk that had fallen upon Port Royal. Why did God hate him? He lost the woman of his dreams to a blacksmith and pirate; he had let Sparrow go and put all his ambition into a hopeless, doomed from the start hunt for said strange pirate. He had been so fixated on catching Sparrow that he had forgotten everything else. He had recklessly gambled with the lives of his men. And they had to pay for his folly with their lives. And he had returned to Port Royal, ashamed and defeated like a mangy dog. Oh what cruelly bad joke!

James asked himself with what he had deserved all this. Fate really had it out for him. And sometimes he wondered why he had survived the tragedy. Yes, sometimes he wished he had shared the horrible and sad fate of his sailors. He had lost everything. Where was the point in anything now?

James stepped up on the battlement and stared down to the rocks that broke through the surface of the sea and glittered in the last rays of the sun. He turned his gaze away again. The rocks seemed like the solution he was looking for. They seemed like the rescue out of his misery. It was tempting. He didn’t have anything left to live for. He didn’t care about life itself any more. To him, it seemed like the most reasonable solution. In this very moment, he saw himself as a coward because he didn’t dare to make that one final step over the edge. But he had always seen himself as brave. But suicide didn’t have anything to do with bravery. It was a sign of cowardice to choose suicide and flee from your problems and evade taking responsibility for your actions and words. It was brave to go on although you didn’t have the strength left to do so. It was brave to face your problems. Suicide just raised unnecessary questions for which there would likely be no answers. It only caused more pain, grief and suffering. No, it definitely was cowardly to choose the way of suicide. It was cowardly. And he was no coward! No, he was a brave and proud man. And even the greatest tragedy wouldn’t change anything about that.

Or maybe it would? James had to admit that he had lost all his courage in that hurricane. And his pride had lost its meaning. His pride had cost him everything. Just because of his damned pride he had sailed out into that storm to chase Sparrow. He should have known better. Everything could have come differently if he had just listened to reason.

James clenched his hands into fists. Everything could have come differently! He alone was to blame for his misery. He had dug his own grave but it yawned with emptiness. He should be in it and rest in peace. He should have sunken with his ship. That’s how it should be. He didn’t want to be here. There was nothing for him here. He didn’t feel like he belonged any more. He felt like an outcast, a stranger. And he was certain that everyone else was thinking the exact same thing about him. He shouldn’t be here. He should be dead.

James turned his empty gaze back to the horizon and tensed up. He was a coward, he told himself in his head. A coward chose the easy way out. His gaze wandered to the first stars in the sky. The night was his witness. And right in this instance, James deemed it the right way, even if it was easy and dishonourable. It was right. It was necessary. He needed to make it right.

James closed his eyes and relaxed his muscles again. Somewhere deep inside him, he knew that this was wrong. But the thought was extinguished by the all-consuming darkness which called him. He gave up. He just gave up. He gave up every good feeling, every good memory. He gave up hope. He just gave up everything. He gave himself up. He just wanted it all to be over. The guilt that slowly ate away at him, he wanted it to go away. He wanted redemption. He wanted his peace. Eternal peace. He wanted to fill the grave, just like it was supposed to be. He simply wanted to do what he should have done in that hurricane – die.

He took a deep breath and wondered what it would feel like. Then he took the step forward and let himself fall. It was a feeling of freedom which wouldn’t end even with the inevitable death. Just for a moment, there was nothing but the murmur of the wind in his ears. But then he heard someone scream in panic. “JAMES!”

But it was too late. James opened his eyes in an attempt to see who had screamed his name in desperation. Of course, he couldn’t see whoever it had been, so he closed his eyes again. He didn’t think about anything any more and finally felt free of all burdens. He saw Death in front of him and he greeted him with open arms, just like an old friend. And the darkness wrapped itself around him.

James’ body collided with a rock and dark blood streamed down the rock and into the water. The waves reached for the shattered body of the Commodore and pulled it down into the peaceful, silent depths of the sea…

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry for the ending. I love James. He is my favourite character of PotC.
> 
> Anyway, hope you like it nonetheless.


End file.
